


Do Not Go Gentle

by icarus_chained



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Courage, F/M, Fear, Gothic, Horror, Love, Monsters, Past Loves, Possession, Regret, Strength, Supernatural Elements, Temptation, Transgression, Weakness, damnation, surrender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me walk with you, Miss Ives." And he didn't understand, of course, didn't know what he was asking, but Vanessa had not the strength to save him. Not in the face of temptation, transgression. She was never strong enough for that.</p><p>Vanessa/Ethan, discussion of present/past Ethan/Dorian, Ethan/Brona, Vanessa/Peter and Vanessa/Mina. Revelations from 1x05, "Closer Than Sisters".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Go Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> Working on the theory that Ethan's monster is something like a werewolf, and that Vanessa's is something infinitely more terrible. Title from the Dylan Thomas poem.

He stood before her, her wild, precise man, her hired gun, her fierce and flinching friend. Mr Chandler, Ethan, with blood behind his teeth and claws beneath his skin, hungry for a hand at his neck and a master to lay down beside. So very lost, aimless in this world of shadows and seductions, unmoored from the loves and the lights that he so desperately craved.

So beautiful, Vanessa thought, admiring him somewhat helplessly. Beautiful, and fierce, and far, far too fragile. She would see his blood before they were through. She knew it. She would see the shattering of his soul, what little of it might be left, as he cast himself foolishly and blindly into the breach. He was too loyal, too romantic, too enchanted of dreams too frail to survive. He would be broken here. He would not survive what was coming.

Not that life was guaranteed for any of them, of course. They were weak, one and all. There were monsters lurking inside them, and temptations that none of them could afford. They might none of them survive. But Ethan, she thought, would suffer most. Ethan would shatter hardest, all the more for believing himself strong. Of all of them, only Victor was more frail, but Victor at least had a knowledge of it. Victor, at least, did not still think his darkness might be the greater. Ethan had no such grace.

"Let me walk with you," he said, the grip of his pistol resting calmly beneath his hand. So determined, still. Innocently demanding that which he could not hope to understand. "Miss Ives. Allow me to accompany you."

He meant on her errand. Of course he did. But he meant more than that, too. And she thought, perhaps, that right now she could not bear it. That this moment was not the time to confront that looming fatality in his shadow. 

A mere trip to the museum did not, she thought, warrant such gloom and trepidation. Or not today, at least.

"Another time, Mr Chandler," she said, light and gentle. "I don't think this errand would suit you."

Cruel, in its way, but then she was always that. A cruel little girl, spreading ruin behind her. But not today. Today, let cruelty spare what kindness could not. She stepped around him delicately, with only the smallest of dismissive smiles as she brushed past, her hand light and careful on his arm as she bid him silently to stay. Let us walk in darkness together some other time, Mr Chandler. Let us leave that horror to the future where it belongs, and have some separate breath of air for now.

But then ...

"Does that matter?" he asked, with a gruff and challenging sort of knowing, as he turned behind her to watch her go. "If it suits me. Does that matter?"

She paused, went still. A tilt of her head as the question caught on something between them, a hint of his knowing, a hint of something more than innocence from him. Or less, perhaps. But there, nonetheless. It caught her. It held.

"Seems to me very little suits me nowadays," he went on, moving softly behind her, coming to rest at her stiff and careful back. He did not touch, was not so presumptuous. But there was something in his voice neither wild nor pure, a city thing, that understood temptation. "I wasn't made for this. For any of it, maybe. But there are certain advantages to belonging nowhere. Boundaries don't mean so much anymore. Don't you think?"

She felt the quiver, the tremble within her. Fear and joy. Temptation, need. Those black little things that had haunted her all her life. There was a smile for his words. She found it on her lips all unwitting, and trembled at the feel of it.

"And what if boundaries are all that keep us safe, Mr Chandler?" she asked, as she turned carefully into the heat of his nearness. As she turned into the grip of a wildness that had learned of vice. He stared back at her, solemn and serious. Not so innocent as she had thought.

"... Maybe safety don't mean so much no more either," he offered softly. Gently, like a hand held out towards a wolf. Or something worse than a wolf. More deadly, more fragile. "You invited me here, Miss Ives. I could have walked away at any time. At every time. But I didn't. And I think maybe it's time to make that choice more permanently. Wouldn't you agree?"

She breathed, a hitch of pity, of pain. And she'd wanted it. She'd arranged it. But still. Oh, but still. Not so innocent he may be, but not strong enough either. Not dark enough. Not for where she meant to tread.

"Don't," she said, touching his cheek softly. A quick touch, delicate. Afraid. "Ethan. Don't. You don't know where we are. You don't know where we're going." A pause, her lips pressed together, and then, airy and cruel: "Not even your monster knows. Not even that thing inside you. We walk beyond that reach too."

He stiffened, of course. A half-flinch, curving away from the knowing in her eyes, the cold, implacable discovery. As he did from Victor, from the flaying thing in Victor's mien that sought to rend the world to base parts the better to reconstruct it. But Victor's was frailer than hers. Brighter and less ugly. Well should Ethan flinch from the seeing thing inside her.

But he didn't. Or only a little. Not far enough. Not fearful enough to save him. He flinched, and then he returned. Retreated first, and then smiled, wry and twisted and weary, and settled rough hands gently about her hips instead. Not holding. Not possessing. Only asking, instead. Joining, almost gently. Her breath caught in pain.

"I walk with _you_ ," he said, as he'd said before. Meaning it now, with a knowing someone had forced him to, a knowing someone had sold him. She stared, catching glimmers of it behind his eyes, mirrors that his monster, pure and brutalised, did not understand. "No matter where we go. No matter how bloody we end up. I walk with you, Vanessa Ives. For as far as you'll take me."

Her heart quivered. Terror. Fear of loss, fear of pain. Fear of love. Because she could, she knew. She could love this man. She had always loved weakness, loved frailty and the foolish hope it brought to a man. She could love Ethan, as once she had loved Peter, and look how that had ended? Or as she had loved Mina, and that only worse. In death, either way, and at her hand in the latter. She was not so strong as that.

Or she was. Stronger, even, and more terrible. She was strong enough. But she did not _wish_ to be.

"There is only darkness where I walk," she said, and there was _weight_ to it. There was meaning, hard and desperate and sure. "You have lunacy about you, Mr Chandler. A monster and a madness. But there is no moon where I must walk. No light. Only blood, and death. Do you not understand that?"

He licked his lips, pressed them closed to hide his teeth. Something strange on his face. Fear, longing. Not lust. Not as she'd expected. Nor innocence, not as she'd hoped. He looked at her, and for one breathless moment she feared, suddenly, that he _did_. That he did understand, and wanted anyway. That he could know, could see, and walk to damnation regardless. Her heart flashed with fear, and he dipped his head beneath hers. A bow. A submission. A promise.

"Maybe so," he murmured, wry and pained and still, even still, a little longing. "Maybe that's all there is. But at least ... at least it would be honest." He lifted his head, a fragile sort of knowing in his eyes, something close to humour. "Blood doesn't lie, Miss Ives. You'll grant it that at least."

Vanessa blinked. Shook her head, thoughts distant and hollow. Odd, unmoored. There must be something. Some reason. He could not be allowed to do this. Would be allowed. Must be. But what was life save a desperate flail against the inevitable?

"And what of your sorrow, Mr Chandler?" she managed, holding the words like a weapon. A cruelty to be kind. "Your lost cause. What of Brona?"

His face creased, half anger and half pain, and shook his head in turn. "She doesn't ... That's not an issue anymore. She didn't want what I had to offer. Simple as that."

Vanessa felt a leap of pity in her chest. A leap of understanding, not for him but for the other. For Brona, who must have pitied him too. Brona, who must have seen inside him as well, and wanted to spare him what was coming. As well as herself, perhaps. To spare them both the death that dogged her footsteps, to save him from what must inevitably follow.

Brona, who must be infinitely stronger and more kind than she. Brona, who had to be more gentle, to free a man before the end, and not drag him down behind her.

Vanessa had not that particular strength. Nor that mercy. She had always been more cruel. But she ought to try, she thought. She ought to try and save him. And there was that glimmer. There was that flash, something she had recognised, a knowing that didn't belong to him. Something that had been planted there, and by ...

Ah. Ah, of course. And why not, hmm? The flesh is weak, and beauty is so very alluring. That, she knew full well. Shocking, and yet not. Temptations were the frailest things of all.

"And what of Dorian?" she asked him, lightly, and felt the flinch through the hands still cupped around her. Smiled darkly, a bright and rich triumph behind her teeth, her cruelty rising to catch the knot of lust and shame and pain inside him. Catch it, twist it, press blood tears out from it. "What of your other lover, Mr Chandler? Will he walk in darkness too? Will he follow you down where there is no moon and no light, where there is only blood and darkness and a mirror to reflect his sins?" She took his face between her hands, held him tight and daring with all the fierce, snide rage inside her. "Would he walk in my footsteps too, do you think?"

He might, she thought. There was something in Dorian, some poison beneath the petals of his beauty. Some mirror behind his eyes. He might walk with them. He might walk ahead of them, for all she knew. There was fear in him, and poison, and a light, airy knowledge of sin. Perhaps he would see nothing in her mirror that he did not already in his own. Perhaps there was no darkness of hers that could damn him more again.

But she did not know that. Not for certain. And Dorian was frail enough, light and weak and hollow enough, that Ethan might balk to protect him. That the wild and honest thing inside him, the purer sort of monster, might flinch back and move to guard a lighter path, a more delicate sort of beauty. Ethan needed something gentler than she, longed for something more innocent than she had left to give, or at least less daring than necessity had made her. He had to know it. Perhaps a threat to that frailer thing might move him.

But no. She saw it in him, even as she said it. Even as she dared him, challenged him to lead another astray. Something flared in Ethan's eyes, something darker and more knowing, something not docile at all. A predator, a monster, all that she had loved since she was a child. Something she _wanted_ , and which wanted her in turn. A wolf made civilised against its will, a monster seeking honest blood. A dog, perhaps, in search of a master to lay down beside. He wanted Dorian, he wanted Brona, wanted those weaker things than he. But he wanted her more. He wanted strength, to match his weakness. He wanted cruelty, to shield his kindness.

He wanted her. Darkness and all, pain and all. He wanted all that was cruel and fierce and unflinching inside her. He needed it. He needed her.

And oh, but she needed him. Her fierce, fragile monster, who would break before it was through. She wanted him. She did.

"I don't know what Dorian wants," Ethan answered harshly, his hands biting now where they hadn't before, leaving bruises on her hips that she only pressed herself harder into, a wild joy for the pain of it. "I don't care. Tell me what _you_ want, Vanessa. Not from him, but from me. Tell me where you want me to go."

And she mustn't, she mustn't, she mustn't, but she _had to_. Always. Always. She could not close the door, once opened. She could not shy from transgression. Never once had she been able for that.

"I want you to follow me," she said. Snarled. Taking his head between her hands, her fingers curling into claws to match those beneath his skin, bringing him down to mingle his breath with hers. "I want you to walk with me, I want you to stand with me, I want to invite you to a darkness from which you will never escape. I want to possess you, Mr Chandler. I want to own you as so many forces wish to own me. I want you to be _mine_."

She was owned, she was enslaved, the Devil looped his shackles hard around her, and she wanted something first. She wanted to own, to use, to have and to hold. She wanted company in her misery, she wanted some weakness she could be allowed to indulge. She wanted him, as she had wanted Peter. And Ethan, at least, might have some smallest hope to survive it. Broken, shattered, soulless. But, perhaps, with luck upon him, yet alive. She might still hope for that, if only fruitlessly.

"I want you," she whispered, closing her eyes to rest her brow against his, to feel the pulse of him against her skin. His wildness, his weakness, his strength. "I want you, Ethan. I do."

He breathed, drew it in as though it was his first, and chuckled softly against her. Rough hands warm about her hips, nose brushing gently against her own. He breathed again, laughed, and agreed.

"Then have me," he said, with a bright shard of innocence still. "As long as you want me, Vanessa, I'm yours."

And he was right, she thought, as he leaned close to kiss her. He was right. There was an honesty in damnation, at least. There was a truth in the blood, cold comfort though it might have been. Hard and cold and empty, but there nonetheless, and perhaps worth it in the end, when sin would grant you nothing else.

There was love, and there could be no greater sin than that. Love damned them faster and harder than anything, and there was no sin she clung too more, embraced more fiercely. A last, desperate flail against the inevitable, nothing more, nothing less. 

But in the end, what else was life?

**Author's Note:**

> After four episodes of intrigue and themes of monstrosity vs modernity, of lust and horror, "Closer Than Sisters" apparently decided to throw in a heroin shot of adultery, transgression, religious horror, Victorian repression, medical horror, rape and demonic possession, and it turns out Vanessa Ives is both an unmitigated badass and a brutalised soul to put Victor Frankenstein to shame. So. Okay then. I can work with that?


End file.
